Sue Grafton - E Is for Evidence

She was still maybe twenty pounds overweight, and she moved with all the enthusiasm of an ungainly pup, leaping up to hug me when I arrived at the table. There had always been a guileless quality about her. Despite the fact she came from money, she had never been snobbish or affected. Where Olive had seemed reserved, and Ebony intimidating, Ash seemed utterly unselfconscious, one of those girls everybody liked. In our sophomore year, we had ended up sitting in adjoining homeroom seats and we'd often chatted companionably before classes began. Neither of us was a cheerleader, an honor student, or a candidate for prom queen. The friendship that sprang up between us, though genuine, was short-lived. I met her family. She met my aunt. I went to her house and thereaf-ter neatly bypassed her coming to mine. While the Woods were always gracious to me, it was obvious that Ash func-tioned at the top of the social heap and I at the bottom. Eventually the disparity made me so uncomfortable that I let the contact lapse. If Ash was injured by the rejection, she did a good job of covering it. I felt guilty about her anyway and was relieved the next year when she sat some-where else.

"Kinsey, you look great. I'm so glad you called. I or-dered us a bottle of Chardonnay. I hope that's okay."

"Fine," I said, smiling. "You look just the same."

"Big rump, you mean," she said with a laugh. "You're just as thin as you always were, only I half expected you to show up in jeans. I don't believe I ever saw you in a dress."

"I thought I'd act like I had some class," I said. "How are you? When I didn't find you listed in the phone book, I thought you'd probably gotten married or left town."

"Actually, I've been gone for ten years and just got back. What about you? I can't believe you're a private detective. I always figured you'd end up in jail. You were such a rebel back then."

I laughed. I was a misfit in high school and hung out with guys known as "low-wallers" because they loitered along a low wall at the far end of the school grounds. "You remember Donan, the boy with the gold tooth who sat right in front of you in homeroom? He's an Ob-Gyn in town. Got his teeth fixed and went to med school."

Ash groaned, laughing. "God, that's one way to get your hand up a girl's skirt. What about the little swarthy one who sat next to you? He was funny. I liked him."

"He's still around. Bald now and overweight. He runs a liquor store up on the Bluffs. Who was that girlfriend of yours who used to shoplift? Francesca something."

"Palmer. She's living with a fellow in Santa Fe who designs furniture. I saw her about a year ago when I was passing through. God, she's still a klepto. Are you mar-ried?"

"Was." I held up two fingers to indicate the number of husbands who had come and gone.

"Children?" she asked.

"Oh God, no. Not me. You have any?"

"Sometimes I wish I did." Ash was watching me with shining eyes and somehow I knew anything I said would be fine with her.

"When did we see each other last? It's been years, hasn't it?" I asked.

She nodded. "Bass's twenty-first birthday party at the country club. You were with the most beautiful boy I ever saw in my life."

"Daniel," I said. "He was husband number two."

"What about number one? What was he like?"

"I better drink some first."

The waiter appeared with the wine, presenting the label for her inspection before he opened it. She waved aside the ritual of the sniffing of the cork and let him go ahead and pour for both of us. I noticed that the waiter was smiling to himself, probably charmed as most people are by Ash's breezy manner and her impatience with formal-ity. He was tall and slim, maybe twenty-six years old, and he told us about the specials as if we might want to take notes. "The sea bass is being served today with a green chili beurre blanc, gently poached first with fresh toma-toes, cilantro, lemon, and white wine, garnished with jalapenos and accompanied by a pine-nut rice pilaf. We're also offering a fillet of coho salmon…" Ash made little mewing sounds, interrupting now and then for clarifica-tion of some culinary subtlety.

I let her order for us. She knew all the waiters by name and ended up in a long chat with ours about what we should eat. She settled on steamed clams in a broth with Pernod, a salad of field greens lightly dressed, and said we'd think about dessert if we were good girls and cleaned our plates.

While we ate, I told her about my connection to Wood/Warren and the irregularities that had come to light.

"Oh, Kinsey. I feel awful. I hope Lance isn't responsi-ble for the trouble you're in."

"Believe me, I do, too. What's the story on him? Is he the type to burn down the family warehouse?"

Ash didn't leap to his defense as I'd expected her to. "If he did, I don't think he'd snitch on himself," she said.

"Good point. Who'd go after him like that?"

"I don't know. That whole situation got very screwed up once Daddy died. He was crazy about the boys, but Bass was a dilettante and Lance raised hell half the time."

"I seem to remember that. Your father must have had conniption fits."

"Oh, he did. You know how straight he was. Daddy had real strong ideas about parenting, but most of them were wrong. He had no idea how to implement them anyway. He wanted to control and mold and dominate but he couldn't even do that very well. Kids just don't behave like company employees. Daddy thought he'd have more control at home, but the truth was, he had less. Both Lance and Bass were determined to thwart him. Bass never has straightened out."

"He's still in New York?"

"Oh, he comes home now and then-he was here for a week at Thanksgiving-but for the most part, he's gone. New.York, Boston, London. He spent a year in Italy and swears he's going back. Much as I love him, he's a waste of time. I don't think he's ever going to get his act together. Of course, Lance was that way for years. They're both smart enough, but they always partied hard and Lance had a few scrapes with the law. It drove Daddy up the wall."

The clams arrived. Each of us was presented with a plate piled high with small, perfect shells, swaddled in cloth to keep the broth piping hot. She speared a tender button of clam flesh and placed it on her tongue, her eyes closing in a near-swoon as she swallowed. I watched her butter a crescent of French bread and dip it in the bowl, sopping up clam liquor. As she bit into it, she made a little sound low in her throat like something out of an X-rated video.

"Your lunch okay?" I asked dryly.

"Fine," she said. "Good." She realized belatedly that I was teasing her and she smiled, her cheeks tinted becom-ingly with pink. "Someone asked me once which I'd rather have-sex or a warm chocolate-chip cookie. I still can't decide."

"Go for the cookies. You can bake 'em yourself."

She wiped her mouth and took a sip of wine. "Anyway, about the last six or seven years, Lance took hold, more or less, and started showing an interest in the business. Daddy was thrilled. Wood/Warren was Daddy's life. He loved us, but he couldn't manage us the way he did the business. By the time Bass came along, the last in line, Daddy'd pretty much given up any hopes for a successor."

"What about Ebony?"

"Oh, she's been passionate about the company since she was a kid, but she didn't believe Daddy'd ever let her have a hand in it. He was old-fashioned. A man leaves his business to his oldest son. Period. He knew Ebony was smart, but he didn't think she was tough enough, and he-didn't think she'd stay with it. Women get married and have babies and spend money. That was his attitude. Women join the country club and play tennis and golf. They don't go head-to-head with chemical engineers and systems analysts. She even went off to Cal Poly and started working on an engineering degree, but Daddy made it clear it wouldn't help her cause, so she went to Europe and got married instead."